Diaper rash on infants and bed ridden elderly people is well known to be a painful condition. Although there are medications on the market to cure diaper rash, the person continues to suffer until cured unless it is further aggravated by contact with soiled diapers in which case it takes longer.
To prevent diaper rash, the best thing to do is to remove the soiled diaper, clean the areas affected by urine and excrement from the person's body and replace the diaper as soon as possible. The importance of this subject is indicated by the numerous devices invented and patents granted for them.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,508,235 to Baisden is for a device including two pins or separate sections of a single pin comprising dissimilar metals which generate a galvanic potential when wet. One disadvantage of this invention is the high cost of manufacture of the pin structure as described as well as the impracticality of pushing a pin into the diaper to come out at a point because inner padding does not allow the pin to be pushed through it.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,678,928 to Mozes is for a device supported by a waist belt and gives a stimulus to the user in case of unintentional urination. It is for adults and impractical for infants.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,106,001 to Mahoney is for a device with an audio alarm in a housing attached to the undergarment with strip conductors attached to the outside of the garment and the housing by adhesive for use as a warning in case of unintentional urination Again not applicable for use on infants' diapers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,191,950 to Levin et al is for an anti bed wetting device. Not applicable for use on infants' diapers and rather cumbersome to attach and use.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,640,276 to Jing-Sheng comprises an alarm system with audio source attachable by adhesive tape inside a diaper as well as having holes on the box, which makes the system extremely unhygenic. No practical means of attachment to the outside of diaper is proposed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,484,573 to Yoo is for an alarm device having an electronic circuit on a board with two ring-shaped detecting pans mounted concentrically and connected electrically to the circuit which are placed directly inside the diaper. For attachment, rather unsafe and impractical tie rings are provided for tying the device which can easily fall off or be pulled off.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,539,559 to Kelly is for a portable electronic signaling device with a disposable sensor strip to be attached onto undergarment or put inside the diaper. The disadvantage of an unsafe strip of electrodes inside the diaper is obvious.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,023 to Xie is for a disposable diaper containing a pair of imbedded electrodes terminated by conductive and adhesive tapes. This type of sensing device needs to be constructed by diaper manufacturer otherwise pushing electrodes into the diaper padding is absolutely impractical.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,796,014 to Chia is for a urine detecting device mounted on a safety pin. This device also has the disadvantages of costly construction of nonconducting safety pins coated with two conductors, as well as impracticality of inserting safety pin into the diaper padding.
Therefore, all of the foregoing inventions have at least one disadvantage including problems with tile use of safety pins which are dangerous and impractical to push through a disposable diaper, use of an unreliable or messy adhesive, a requirement to locate tile sensor of the device inside the diaper, a persistent signal that arouses the infant when the infant is sleeping, and no indication of the time of exposure of the infant to the urine soaked diaper.